Morrison, Toni - Beloved

[oyceter]

I first read this as an assignment in tenth grade, which was not optimal in many ways, one of the foremost being how tenth-grade boys will giggle at the mention of the word "fuck," particularly when it has to do with cows. The other is that Morrison's prose is very dense, so much so that I had a difficult time following it even now. Technically, it's not actually the prose that's dense, but the way Morrison will slip from one timeframe to another in a sentence, go on for a few pages, and then return.

I think I would have done much better had there been manga-esque black borders marking each flashback.

Sethe is an escaped slave with a past more horrifying than most, and when her old friend Paul D shows up, the ghostly presence haunting her house begins to get a little less ghostly and a little more physical. This is a story about how the past haunts us, figuratively and literally, how it can steal into the present and poison it, how something like slavery just keeps echoing and echoing and echoing.

I admired the way Morrison slipped from past to present; even though it was confusing, it felt very appropriate for the book, since Sethe and Paul D can't keep themselves in the present all the time as well. I also liked the feeling of love so thick it suffocates, both Beloved's and Sethe's. Denver was always my favorite when I read it for class, and she remains so on rereading. I like that she's the one to not just avoid the past (Paul D) or succumb to it (Sethe), but goes out to do something about it, balancing between remembering the past without being consumed by it.

I wish I had more to say about this book -- I felt like I missed tons while reading it, as it is not a good book to read when one's brain is not working, like mine.

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read August Wilson? He's a playwright, which may be a bit weird if you're not used to reading plays. But he's brilliant and covers a lot of similar territory in his black history cycle (one for each decade of the twentieth century) in terms of the way that the past is not past, the sense of history being real and present, and magical realism.

My favorites are Joe Turner's Come and Gone and The Piano Lesson. You might also like Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which is about a woman singer and the struggles of being black and in show business.

By the way, do not, as I initially did, confuse him with the prominent playwright Lanford Wilson, who often writes about the struggles of white New Yorkers. I briefly thought they were the same person due to them being shelved next to each other, and was amazed at the very different subject matter and voices!

[oyceter]

I haven't! I'll check those out.